Bigger Every Day

Is the cult of big staging a comeback?

Witness the East Hampton Town Trustees' largest-clam contest, for starters. For several years now the Trustees have sponsored a competition to find the heftiest clam in local waters. This year's quahog, a 2.8-pound monster, was greeted with rejoicing last weekend by what looked to be the largest turnout ever at the event. Coming up next, on Oct. 4, is a Giant Pumpkin Festival, co-sponsored by the East Hampton Kiwanis, the South Fork Natural History Society, and the Child Development Center of the Hamptons.

Speaking of children, have you noticed the big pants they're wearing these days - boys, anyway? Girls are sporting hip-hugger bell-bottoms that were in fashion when the big-muscle cars ruled the road, and come to think of it they go quite nicely with all the leviathan Humvees around now.

Movies sell big candy, super buckets of popcorn, and bigger drinks. The bull market continues to grow, and so, it seems, does the bull.

So does the human population. NATO is bigger, and the U.N. Security Council soon will be. Burger King has reinvented the giant, two-patty burger, and Fen-Phen has been outlawed. Fishermen are waiting for the big striped bass to arrive on its fall migration. The Hubble telescope tells us the universe is still expanding. It better be.